A/N: Another Tumblr prompt, this one by theonionistheonewhocries. They gave me the sentence(s): "'You're acting like a child, Erik.' Those six words kept repeating in his head over and over. He wanted it to end. Why did he do that to Charles?"

I've never been very good with expressing my sentiments for others. Is it's blinding fury or deep-seeded rage, I can manage that. That's violent and detrimental and overpowering. I can dish out anything painful or cruel easily.

But when it comes down to feelings of affection, fondness, care, love…

I start to lose my way. I'm not sure how to show them, now to be natural about them like others are.

But I still feel them. The sentiments are there. They sweep over me and fill me with a blossom of a miniature sun, the emotion beautiful and intense and unlike anything I have ever known or experienced. I have known family love and care, the sort you feel for your parents — particularly my mother — but this? This is different. And I feel it whenever Charles so much as glances my way, touches me even the slightest bit, or says something to me.

And that phrase, those words carved so deeply into my memory: "There is so much more to you that you know." This feeling proves that. I'm capable of love, it seems. I'm capable of more than anger and hatred, like he said.

And it flabbergasts me. It utterly stuns and confuses me, like being thrown into a tornado, whipping around in a blurry daze.

To put it simply, I like Charles. Even harder to say and with more complication, I love Charles. And this dilemma is plaguing me like a physical illness, and I'm not sure what to do with it.

Therefore, I regard it like any other emotion and react accordingly.

I push him away.

I shove Charles aside when we walk by one another in the hallways of his mansion. I up the competition during our chess games and smack him down as I win and he loses. I trip him when he jogs by outside during training. I start to act verbally callous and cold when he speaks to me.

Finally, enough is enough, and Charles snaps when I start to play mild pranks on him, Alex assisting me. But one prank goes a bit too far, Charles slipping and falling, bruising his thigh.

"Goddammit, Erik!" he grunts, standing and glaring at me, and the smirk on my face falls instantly, my brow hardening into a frown.

"What?" I say, and Alex flees as Charles and I have a showdown not without the same tension as a cowboy and an outlaw facing off one another in the town's streets.

"You know every well what!" Charles retorts bitterly, his face flushed with aggravation. "You are acting like a child, Erik. Elementary school level, if I'm not mistaken. A little boy wish a crush he doesn't want anyone to know about, so he bullies the little girl he fancies. Is that really a way to get my attention? Pathetic," he says, his tone low and carefully measured, and soon, he's marching with a bit of a limp, hand on his bruise, out of the kitchen.

I balance myself on the counter with one hand. I hadn't thought this through, only acted; I had thought, if I meant it in jest, or if Charles and I were as close and I thought, this wouldn't matter. But it does; oh, he so very clearly does matter.

I grit my teeth and pound my fist onto the marble. Fuck! I am such a fucking asshole. What did I think would happen? Charles would laugh and then ask me to play chess? No. No, of course not. Not after all that I have been doing.

I mutter a few curse words in Polish and German before turning around and harshly knocking a peering, curious Sean out oft he way as I head back to my room.

You are acting like a child, Erik.

You are acting like a child, Erik.

You are acting like a child, Erik.

The words echoed and rebounded off of the walls of my skull over and over like a sick mantra, trying to give me lashes for misbehavior. I kick my door-frame and slam my bedroom door behind me by the hinges with an angry hand swinging down by my side as I stride into the center and begin to pace.

Why did I do that to Charles? What did I think I could gain from any of it?

Because he's absolutely correct. It was elementary, bullying flirtation, and it was degrading and childish and moronic.

I sit down, one arm bent at the elbow, hand on my knee, while the other hand pinches the bridge of my nose, my arm tucked close to my body.

I need to fix this.

But even as I try for the next two days, Charles blatantly ignores me, leaving me to learn my lesson in silence, and it aches and aches inside every time he refuses to look at me, and I just want it to end, because I can still his his voice in my head —

(You are acting like a child, Erik.)

—And it's driving me insane.

So, finally, I burst into his room — unlocking the metal door handle with a twist of my fingers — and slam it behind me.

"Are you that angry with me, Erik? I should be the angry one," he remarks coolly, and I don't have time for his mellow bullshit.

"You have been angry. For days. You've been giving me the silent treatment!" I snap back, and I come up very close to him while he's folding some of his clothes on his bed. He sets a shirt, neatly folded, aside. He turns to face me with nothing in his expression.

"No, I have been avoiding you in hopes that you would either repent, try a different approach, or not hurt me again."

"I never meant to hurt you," I say, a sigh escaping my lips as I lower my shoulders. I reach out to him, and he stiffens when my hand makes contact with his cheek. I wince. "Please, believe that I never meant to hurt you, I only…"

"You don't know how to show your feelings," Charles remarks, and he turns out of my hand to go back to his folding. "I understand that. But it doesn't redeem your actions."

"Then let me redeem them! I will do anything, Charles." I click my tongue in irritation at myself before stepping to behind him and pressing my forehead between his shoulder blades, my arms encircling his waist. He ceases movement, and for a second, doesn't even breathe. I whisper, "I'm sorry, Charles. I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I won't be a child any longer. I will man up and confess — accept — that I love you."

The telepath in my arms inhales sharply, then, slowly, loosens my grip to turn around in my arms and look me in the eye.

Then he's kissing me, and I know that I've finally done the right thing, and have proven myself in his eyes, even if I thoroughly fucked it up the first time through.